I am alive, as is my mother.

After missing both Monday and Tuesday's updates (though I did update the last chapters of them to explain with a note at the top) I know several people have been worried, and some not so worried and more annoyed at the lack of updates. Allow me to explain:

My cancer-surviving mother has, over the years, had a vast amount of treatments to keep her alive and healthy, all on our wonderful NHS who have done their best for her at no cost to us. Chemo and many treatments have left her very weak though, with collapsed veins, no immune system and a weak heart. It was honestly a miracle she survived COVID to get her vaccines, and mostly because I and my family took quarantine super seriously for her sake. I did not go out once. No parties, no get-togethers, nothing, because my mom's safety is more important than some fun.

While she has survived thus far and done well for herself, her heart has continued to get weaker, even after a prior heart surgery to put in a stent during an angioplasty. She needed another operation, which she underwent on the weekend, and which, while she survived it, did not go perfectly. There were complications I don't want to get into that left her in a bad state, and while she was discharged in the hopes they wouldn't be an issue, she had fainting spells all Monday – necessitating me to take the day off work and writing both to care for her. Monday evening, she went back into hospital.

Tuesday, we were called in to discuss the situation and be told of the risks. My mother is going to need another heart surgery, and this one will be dangerous. Worse, due to how weak her heart is they are afraid that an anaesthetic will kill her, so she is going to have to be kept AWAKE for the surgery. Obviously, on painkillers and local anaesthetic, but not put to sleep as they just don't think her heart can handle that.

It's going to be a huge risk and a huge defining moment and she was naturally in tears, especially after being warned that even if it does go successfully, she's likely to measure her remaining lifespan in a couple of years at best. Still, I'm happy to live in a country where the hospitals are determined to go ahead and grant us a chance at just a few more years even though it's expensive. There's no cost-benefit analysis here, no crippling debt and no having to fight insurance over it. But because of all this, I just couldn't write Monday and Tuesday – especially not comedy stories. My mind wasn't in the right place, my hands were shaking and I felt constantly sick with worry but had to force a smile for her sake in a crowded, anti-septic hospital ward.

I trust almost all of you understand and accept why I couldn't write and hope that those who won't are intentionally trying to troll, because I'd rather believe that then some people actually and genuinely believing my duty should be to write for you first, to love my family second. I know that 99% of you aren't like that. Thanks for coming to this long-winded TED Talk. Let's get on with the story.

Cover Art: Curbizzle

Chapter 60

Tony Scalamento was not a religious man and yet he prayed to whatever deity was out there that he and the two men running with him might make it in time. The loss of Hei Xiong had been a hammer blow to the Xiong Clan, a weakening to their standing the likes of which was still being felt today. Jaune Arc, or Jaune Xiong as he allowed himself to be called, might have believed he was doing well, and to be fair to him he was doing better than anyone would have expected of him, but it wasn't enough. He was not Hei, he was not a natural born leader and he lacked the vicious edge, the bite that kept bad men in power.

He was a good lad, a young man in over his head, and one Tony, Melanie and Miltia had done their level best in protecting. Their way of honouring Hei's memory. It wasn't always easy, but the boy knew he was inexperienced and was always quick to listen, so it was never a chore.

Now, he dreaded what he might find of that young, impressionable boy – of a young man, barely older than a child, hunted down by the worst Atlas had. Tony's hands tightened into fists and he pushed his legs as hard as he could, running past the broken rubble and single dead body that marked Atlas' entry point, a hole blown into the wall and bullet holes raking either side of the corridor to kill any in the rooms. There shouldn't have been any thankfully, but that only meant no one to impede their direct path to Hei's office.

Please let us arrive in time. Please, any god out there!

They didn't stop to open the door to Hei's office; they burst through it with guns raised. The thick stench struck him first, followed by a wave of nausea that never went away no matter how many dead bodies he was exposed to. His foot splashed into a puddle that sprayed droplets of red up his pant leg, immediately drawing the attention of the sole survivor in the room.

They hadn't made it in time.

And yet… they also hadn't been needed.

Jaune, the young man that Tony had thought himself of an older brother of sorts to, stood amid blood and gore and piss. The sword in his right hand, his good hand, dipped low, its fuller run red and droplets loudly plinking from the end onto a broken glass bottle wedged into the throat of a very dead, older man with grey hair. His white shirt was stained red and untucked, his black tie yanked sideways haphazardly, his collar popped open by the force of each heavy breath he took. His jacket was uneven, half hanging on over the cast on his left arm and half discarded, trailing behind him in the blood.

Dark blue eyes swivelled quickly and took the three of them in, zeroing in on Tony's face. Jaune's throat expanded, a loud, rattling hiss slipping past his cracked and bloody lips. Imperceptible, unconsciously, he shifted his body toward them, his right foot scraping a clean line through the blood on the floor as he shifted to bring his weapon to bare.

He looked feral – and for a moment Tony truly thought he might leap across the small distance between them and drive that sword through his chest. There was little of the boy left, little of that innocence and frustrated idealism that Tony had secretly sought to protect. I'm going to die, Tony thought dully. He's going to kill me. Luckily, one of the men with him had a far poorer grasp on their survival instincts.

"Boss!" The man laughed loudly, lowered his gun and shouted, "You're alive!"

"Told you he fucking would be!" the other said. He hadn't. All three of them had believed Jaune dead, but now, faced with this, he didn't hesitate to try and claim some bragging points. "The Xiong wouldn't fall to some bitch-ass attempt like this. Fuck Atlas and their tricks. Fuck 'em."

Jaune's eyes fixed on the two, his chest rising and falling, his body shaking. The boy's hand tightened around the hilt of his weapon and the tip rose toward them. Tony sucked in a breath. Then, with a visible amount of effort that involved closing his eyes and gritting his teeth together, Jaune angled the weapon down and sheathed it on his left hip.

"Yes." His voice was low. Vibrating. Dangerous. "Fuck Atlas." He stepped over the dead body closest to him, over the dead body of Dominic Hands, the once-leader of the Atlas Gentlemen. "My office is ruined," he said.

Of all the things to say, Tony hadn't expected that one. He wasn't sure Jaune did either, or if the boy – the man – wasn't just trying to make conversation. Any conversation that broke the dangerous atmosphere and took attention away from the triple homicide.

"We'll have this one cleaned up in a jiffy," Tony promised. "Unless you want a new one. No one would blame you after this."

"A new one sounds good. This one… I'm not sure the stains will wash out."

They would. The Xiong Clan, like most gangs, knew the best ways to get blood out a carpet, but that wasn't what Jaune meant. Even if the place was spotless clean and sanitised, he'd still know it happened here. Some stains remained even when all physical evidence of them did not.

"What will happen now that Dominic is dead? What will happen to the Atlas Gentlemen?"

"Not much I'm afraid." Tony said. He clumsily holstered his handgun when Jaune gave it a meaningful look. He didn't want to accidentally threaten the boss after this. "Sorry," he whispered. "I'm a little jumpy right now. With Dominic dead, they're without a leader, but the reality is he was never their boss in the first place. He was more a sub-commander, a lieutenant on the field leading a battalion in foreign territory. He answered to people above him and they'll just sent someone to replace him. They might even send one of his superiors, someone better."

"Then the Gentlemen will still be around after this?"

"Unfortunately. Shifting foreign gangs isn't easy – what you see in Vale is just a small branch of their main operations, like a single finger on a hand. You can cut it off and slow them down but they can always send someone else to take over. Or promote someone from within."

The latter was a realistic option with Atlas' gangs because of how many of them came from the army. Not all were discharged or kicked out; some retired, some were picked from and some just realised that risking your life for your kingdom didn't pay as well as risking your life for a gang, and both had the same risks attached so why not earn more? It wasn't unusual for a ranking officer to go rogue and take all the people under him with them, having built loyalty among squads. Some of the Gentlemen's forces were rumoured to still be in the army, ranking as officers. There were even rumours, heavily contested, that said the Atlas military was in contact with the Gentlemen. Not as allies, but as uneasy bedfellows, with the Gentlemen occasionally being bribed under secrecy to undertake operations that Atlas' reputation couldn't afford to be tarnished with.

They were dangerous men one and all, many hardened by real combat and warfare, and all capable of following orders, adapting and executing plans the average have-a-go-gangster couldn't. Tony dreaded to imagine how hard it would be to organise their own men into a diversionary force and a small strike team that would breach, sweep and clear a building. There was just too much to go wrong, too many moving pieces.

"This won't be the end of them, then?" Jaune asked.

"I'm afraid not, boss. Dominic will just be replaced."

Jaune stared down at the man's dead body for a long few seconds. Long enough for Tony to begin fidgeting and wonder if he wasn't lost in his mind after this much death. Then, suddenly, he spoke. "What if there was no one left to promote?"

Tony's mouth felt very, very dry. "What do you mean?"

"What if everyone was dead?" Jaune asked quietly. "Every single one of them."

"I… I…" The question was terrifying, not least of all for its implications but how serious he looked when posing it. Wars that wiped out gangs did happen, the Ravagers being a good example, but those were small, disorganised groups. "Waging war with Atlas isn't possible. They have too many people, too many weapons and-"

"Not Atlas. The Atlas Gentlemen."

"It's the same thing! They're the same thing. It's… I mean…" Tony ran a hand over his forehead, sweeping his hair back. "You could wipe them out in Vale," he admitted. "If we had help, and assuming we survive here and dent most their forces, it might even be doable. Atlas would then have to ship more in from the homeland. It'd take them time to rebuild, I suppose, but it wouldn't do anything to enamour them to us."

"We've thrown our lot in with Mistral today." Jaune pointed out. "We're enemies. I'd rather we be enemies they hate and fear than enemies they consider pushovers."

Up until tonight Tony would have called Jaune a pushover. Not cruelly, but in how easily he let the twins run over him and how the other gangs saw him. That had changed drastically at the summit when he and Cinder killed someone and confronted the big three, but there were those who called that a fluke, a one-off stroke of violence born of a cornered animal.

After tonight, though? Well, Tony had a feeling that was going to change.

"Come on." Jaune said, moving between them. Tony leapt out his way while the two mobsters fell in on either side of their boss, heads held high and shoulders full of swagger. "Tony, get someone to fix that hole. You two with me – we're putting an end to this nonsense tonight."

Fix the hole? Tony watched the boss go with an open mouth, then swore and chased after him. The hole could bloody well wait. He took the stairs three at a time, but even that wasn't enough to catch up with him. Jaune walked out the ground floor, out into the middle of a gunfight. He drew his sword, still soaked with blood, and held it high.

"Atlas!" he roared. The gunfire slowly abated as someone on the other side of the club called out for a halt. Military discipline won out a whole lot faster than the Xiong's disorganised lot, with Miltia and Melanie having to bark orders to stop several times before it was heeded. Jaune waited, stood out in the open unflinchingly. Once a quiet fell over the club, aside from a few groaning people dying and injured, he continued. "Atlas Gentlemen. Dominic Hands is dead."

His words brought a hushed murmur. He had no proof, no severed head or the like, but since everyone on Atlas' side knew the plan and knew he should be assassinated by now and could see he was both alive and bloody, they could put the pieces together.

"Your leader is dead, your plan thwarted and reinforcements are on the way to pincer you from behind." Jaune brought his sword down and leant his hand atop the pommel, balancing it point toward the ground. "I will give you this one chance to lay down your arms and surrender. If you do, you will be spared. If not…" He took a shuddering breath. "Then an example will be made of you to your brethren back home."

The threat lingered, hanging in the air like a ghostly promise. Tony waited with bated breath, fully aware of the hushed conversation passing over whatever communications systems they used. If this were any Vale gang, he was sure they'd surrender. They were only loyal to the idea of money, and while they might be brave enough to run a drive-by, they were prone to waver at the slightest sign of defeat.

Not soldiers. Not veterans. It was said that a trained professional could keep calm even in the midst of a crisis, and Tony's heart fell as not a one of them took the chance to flee or broke ranks to drop their weapons. If anything, they were taking the time to reload, with several quickly darting out to grab their wounded and drag them back behind cover. They were using Jaune's ultimatum to better prepare themselves to push the attack.

"We have a counter-proposal." An apparent ranking officer called out.

Jaune looked toward him. "Yes?"

The shot rang out like a crack of thunder, and Jaune's head snapped back. Tony gasped – the Xiong Clan roared in horror. Jaune's left foot slid back, catching himself before he could fall. His face glimmered a bright shade of white, as a single, squashed-flat piece of metal tinkled to the floor. Jaune swung his head forward, eyes closed, teeth gritted, and a small but prominent bruise forming in the middle of his forehead, between bangs of lank, damp blonde hair. He took a deep, shuddering breath and the white glow spread, overtaking his shoulders and arms to encase his whole body. His eyes snapped open.

"There's no talking to any of you, is there?"

In the silence Jaune sounded so done with it. So defeated. He sighed, and Tony felt like a boy's innocence was dying before his eyes.

"So be it."

He lunged. Tony's jaw dropped, but the Atlas soldiery opened fire, raining bullets down on Jaune and the stunned Xiong gangsters both. Good men and women fell in the volley before they dove back for cover, all except for Jaune who barrelled forward as bullets pinged off his aura.

"Huntsman!" a soldier shouted. "Hunts-maaargh!"

The sword swept and cleaved through his chest, bouncing off his sloped chest armour designed to deflect bullets. That only caused the deadly blade to slide up and swing under his jaw instead, cutting through his helmet straps and cutting his head clean open. Jaune kept moving even as he fell, bringing his sword up in one hand and down onto the shoulder of another.

Atlas' armour was not made to withstand melee attack. They weren't expected to fare well against Grimm, and the sloped and segmented armour was mostly for use against arms fire. It protected key parts of the body, but to allow ease of movement there had to be areas spared of it. Jaune's sword found them, either by intent of when the blade hit armour and skidded toward them. What was made to deflect bullets did not deflect a sword – instead, it acted like a guide, like it was designed to better angle the sword to squishier, less-protected parts of the human body.

The first of the soldiers to face him fell not to the beautiful dance of a huntsman, but to the barbaric slaughter of an amateur with too much aura – a savage who could not be killed quicker than he could kill you. Jaune hacked and swung recklessly, and some of the soldiers were even able to dodge or fend him off for a time, something they'd have had little chance against a real Huntsman, but it just didn't matter. He lasted, he endured, he ignored the shots placed on his body and drove forward, and the soldiers only had so much room to give. Ultimately, they would trip or be pinned against a table, or they would dodge out of cover and into the sights of Tony and the others. They picked their poison however they wanted, and they all died the same, bleeding out on the floor.

"With the boss!" someone shouted. Whatever the skill disparity, whatever the barbarism, it was hard not to feel inspired when people who had been trying to kill you, who had killed your friends, suddenly earned their comeuppance. "Death to Atlas! Death to Atlas!"

The chant spread. Beleaguered, frightened and injured Xiong Clan members suddenly found their second wind and brought weapons to bear. The problem with a disorganised morale system was that they broke easily, but they could also be rallied just as such. Trained soldiers kept calm, meaning they didn't suffer bad or good, but the men and women around Tony roared like mad beasts, whipped up in Jaune's frenzy and for a moment feeling just as invincible as he.

Even Tony felt it and snarled happily as he squeezed off a shot that took a soldier aiming at one of his friends under the armpit, knocking him down. Miltia whooped like a banshee, flashed them all the goods as she vaulted the bar and then streaked into melee laughing like a lunatic. Even Melanie, ever the calmer sister, wasn't immune to it. Her white dress was streaked with crimson and yet she threw herself into the middle of four soldiers, heels twirling and severing jugulars.

The Atlas soldiers fought harder, knowing their lives depended on it, but the Laurette Family, no better than Xiong mobsters, didn't hold. Unlike the Xiong, they weren't trapped here. They knew that they had somewhere they could run to, and one by one they did just that, screaming and throwing their weapons away, piling out the door with their hands over their heads. Tony spied Lady Laurie Laurette among them, her nerve broken, rushing to the door. He took aim.

"No, you fucking don't!"

The shot caught her in the middle of the back and she jerked. Her cigarette holder fell from her hands and she tumbled forward to be trampled by her own people. That he'd just killed a mob boss registered dimly in his head, and not with the terror that should have been appropriate. Tony laughed instead, thrust his gun into the air and let himself be swept away by the madness.

"Drive them out!" he yelled. "For the Xiong Clan! For the Xiong!"

It was a massacre. Without the support of the Laurette clan's numbers, the well-trained but struggling soldiers were soon rounded up. Jaune, Melanie and Miltia, having reached them, cut through their numbers like a scythe through corn. Many threw down their weapons when it became clear all hope was lost. Many did not. Many chose to fight and die with curses on their tongues, cut down by sword, bladed heel, claw or bullet.

Outside, more screams came. Several members of the Laurette family backed back in, hands in the air, only to be chased by men in dark green suits and red dragon masks. The EDC had arrived at last, cutting off any chances of reinforcements for Atlas, and catching the Laurette gangsters as they tried to escape. Lumbering in, Scanlan threw the doors open, took one look at the bloodstained dance floor, the bodies and the silence, and scowled.

"Arc!" she boomed. "You didn't leave anything but cowards for us!"

"Scanlan, please." Kuja entered without a mask, dabbing some blood off his coat. "I'm sure he tried his best. The traffic getting here was simply murder."

"Literally." Scanlan said. "They predicted we'd come help and set up a roadblock to try and delay us. Pah." She spat on a corpse's face. "Delay us – the Shoryu-Nayuta. Can you fucking imagine? We tore those assholes apart."

"It did work to make us rather late here," Kuja pointed out. "Though not too late to let these little lambs escape." He sneered at the frightened members of the Laurette family. "What's the matter? I thought your group wanted this war. It seems strange to be the ones backing out of it now. I suppose they are your prisoners, Xiong." He waved his hand. "What do you intend to do with them?"

Jaune Arc heaved for air. As much as he still shone with aura, he must have been exhausted and in considerable pain. His stomach was bleeding from where his stitches had torn open, and his cast was cracked and stained with blood. He was a mess staying upright through sheer anger and will, and Tony expected he would crash soon. For now, however, he kept standing, kept snarling, kept shaking with fury.

"Laurette!" he snarled. "Where is Laurie?"

"Dead, boss. Tony shot her in the back."

All eyes turned to Tony, who felt a little uncomfortable under the pressure. "She tried to run," he said defensively. "I didn't know if they would arrive or not, and I wasn't going to let her get away after what she pulled."

"Fair enough." Jaune said with a quick nod his way. "To the rest of you, your boss abandoned you to die. Fled like a coward after the war she started went south. You will all be kept here. Tie them up."

Prisoners? What need did they have of them – what would they even do with them? No one asked, not with the boss looking like that. Everyone moved forward and started to secure them.

"That's it?" Scanlan asked. "What, you gonna hand them over to the authorities? They tried to kill you."

"Tony," Jaune said, ignoring her. "Contact the Laurette family. Tell them Laurie is dead and that I demand to speak with their newly elected leader tonight. Tonight, I will give them an ultimatum. The Laurette family joins the Xiong Clan, becoming a branch family of our gang, or they will be wiped out. Those captured will have the choice of joining us and fighting their former superiors, or they can die here and now."

To no one's surprise, the Laurette members stayed quiet.

"As for Atlas." Jaune took a deep breath and let it go. "I told you I'd make an example. I warned you. None of you would listen. Of course you wouldn't." He marched up to the prisoners, seven in total, and stooped to pick up a handgun off the floor. The prisoners all froze. "I want a nominee. I'm going to make an example of one of you right here and now."

No one volunteered themselves. The Mistral lot watched curiously, Scanlan and Kuja most of all. Eventually, Jaune scowled and pointed to the youngest of the soldiers, a man who was still older than him in his early twenties, but young compared to the other veterans.

The man wept. "No, please! I didn't-"

Jaune was too angry to listen. He strode forward, grasped the man by his flak jacket and hauled him back, turning him so that his fellows could see him. With an angry snarl, Jaune pushed the young man to his knees, standing behind him with the gun in hand.

"I've tried to be honourable." Jaune said. "I've tried to be nice. As nice as a crime lord can be. I didn't kill unless it couldn't be helped, I made friendly with the other gangs, I worked with Dominic and Laurie in the cartel. I've tried and I've tried and I've tried, and my reward is for you fuckers to try and gun me down in a diner. A diner filled with innocent people, many of whom died!" His voice rose to a shout, making the soldiers flinch. "Apparently, nice doesn't work with you. Of course it doesn't – you're soldiers. Professionals. You need a firmer message. Fine," he snapped. "I'm done with playing nice. Now, I play by your rules! If I need to drown my hands in blood to be understood by you, so be it!"

He yanked the young man's head back by his hair, forcing him to open his eyes. To the shock of everyone, the sacrifice, Scanlan and Kuja included, Jaune turned his gun on the other six and opened fire. So close, he couldn't miss. Six shots. Six dead bodies.

The last of them thudded down with a hole in his forehead to match the bruise on Jaune's own, and then he gave the single surviving soldier, the nominee, a quick push, knocking him flat down. The man wept in abject terror. Jaune shuddered and held the gun out. Tony rushed to take it off him, feeling in that moment just how much the boss was shaking. Fury? Regret? Guilt? It was impossible to know.

"Tony."

He saluted. "Yes boss!"

"Have this man driven to the docks and put on a boat. Send him back to Atlas. He's to be my example. Our example. He will take this tale back to his superiors, tell them exactly what happened and pass on my message. That this city belongs to Vale. If Atlas sends so much as a single shipment of soldiers, they will be hunted down and exterminated."

Fucking hell. Tony nodded, the man on the floor sobbed in relief and terror, and Scanlan shook her head, a wary sort of awe visible on her face. The gangsters of the EDC assessed the Xiong Clan again, seeing them now as legitimate allies, and, perhaps, legitimately dangerous people to upset.

"Clean up this mess," Jaune said, turning away. "I thank the EDC, Lumens family and the Shoryu-Nayuta for your assistance. You're welcome to stay and drink, but I'm not sure any of you will want to…"

Sebastian Lumens chuckled and approached, his hands in his pockets, his face grimly pleased. "Not that the Xiong's hospitality isn't famous and all, but I prefer my drinks without body parts. We'll take a pass for tonight. Another time. Preferably once you've had time to clean up."

"The same for us." Kuja said. "We're honoured to have helped and quite impressed with how you handled yourselves, but the smell of blood – well, it has a way of ruining the mood. Bon-Hwa sends his regards and I'm sure we can have a surgeon sent over if you have need…?"

Jaune looked confused. "What?"

"Your stomach." Scanlan said, roaring with laughter. "You're spilling your guts all over the place."

"Ah." Jaune looked down. He was not in fact spilling any vital organs but he was bleeding slowly from the ruptured wound. He grunted and held a hand against it. "I didn't notice."

"Adrenaline. And we won't be needing a surgeon," Melanie said, taking Jaune's arm and letting him lean on her. "Thank Lord Bon-Hwa for us, but this just needs cleaning and stitching shut and I can do that faster than he can dispatch any surgeon here. It's appreciated, though."

The twins quickly dragged Jaune away, and at last his strength failed him, anger vented and the threats that kept him on his feet giving out. Few noticed, and those that did hardly cared. Their own hearts were pounding, blood rushing through their bodies. They looked ready to go out and storm the Laurette family themselves, but after this massacre he was sure they wouldn't be so reckless as to not at least agree to hear the Xiong out, especially with so many of their own taken hostage.

That left Tony with the unenviable job of cleaning all this up and making this place look like an actual nightclub, preferably before anyone from the authorities could come ask what all that noise was about.

"Quickly! Start gathering the bodies – I want mops and bleach, litres of the stuff. Move quickly, people. You can rest assured someone heard all this noise and I want this place looking like it suffered a gas leak and not a gang war!"

If the EDC really had fought and killed Atlas gangsters on the roads then that would be the police's number one priority. It would buy them time as they dealt with the visible violence. Hopefully, time enough for them to incinerate all these bodies. The clean-up always was the less glamourous side of this kind of life.

As he moved to the fore, he came to Laurie Laurette's body, turned onto her back with her face frozen in a rictus of terror. Her makeup did little to hide her sorry state.

"You sure as hell underestimated the boss, didn't you?" he asked her. "Or maybe you didn't. Maybe this is what you made him into. Whatever the case, you made this bed. Time to lay in it."

The dead woman had no answer. Few did.

Bit of a brutal chapter. I know. Shooting prisoners, executing people, so much death. There's a good reason this is written not from Jaune's point of view. The angle, if you didn't catch it, is that Jaune was driven mad by pain, fear and anger all mixing into one. He was angry that all his efforts at being peaceful meant nothing, that all his efforts to be good were undone or taken advantage of by other people.

This isn't Jaune nor is it going to be in the future. Obviously, this kind of maddened bloodshed is just that – maddened – and Jaune will have to come to terms with what he did. Come to terms and accept that it was his decision, emotions or no.

Next Chapter: 10th March

P a treon . com (slash) Coeur